10_shakespeare 3
Once Upon a Time
3. The true beginning of our end.
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act V, Scene I
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little girl.
(It’s always like that, isn’t it? A lost little girl and a handsome little boy. Nobody ever wants to know where the wicked witch came from.)
She lived in a house with a plum tree at the bottom of the garden. She and her sisters would gather up the fruit and munch on it until their mouths turned red.
(Is that part of the story? It should be apples, but Drusilla doesn’t like apples. They taste - tasted, when she could still eat - of Eve and forbidden fruit, and reminded her too much of the sins she didn’t dare to confess.)
They were happy and Daddy was happy and Mummy was happy and it seemed as if everything would be perfect forever. But the beautiful little girl had a terrible secret.
(The devil’s daughter, she was.)
She wasn’t beautiful. The devil had put his pictures into her head and the louder she prayed the clearer they became.
(The devil likes to feed on virtue. She could have been a saint.)
The plum tree withered and died.
(While the devil and his queen waited for the other plum to ripen.)
She went to church to try to absolve her sins, but the Lord didn’t want her. He told her she’d been born to be wicked, and the little girl began to realise that he was right.
(She wondered if she should throw herself into the river and cut off the wickedness forever. A drowning Ophelia. She’d always been fond of herbs and it would have been better to die pure than live in a shroud of sin. But she was so young, so frightened. She couldn’t save herself.)
Before she could decide what to do, the devil came to claim his own.
(He didn’t have a name, the devil. Like Rumpelstiltskin. They called him after the angels, but the angels in the stories were always white and beautiful and he was wrong. Terribly wrong.)
He …
(No. No. We can’t tell them that.)
3. The true beginning of our end.
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act V, Scene I
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little girl.
(It’s always like that, isn’t it? A lost little girl and a handsome little boy. Nobody ever wants to know where the wicked witch came from.)
She lived in a house with a plum tree at the bottom of the garden. She and her sisters would gather up the fruit and munch on it until their mouths turned red.
(Is that part of the story? It should be apples, but Drusilla doesn’t like apples. They taste - tasted, when she could still eat - of Eve and forbidden fruit, and reminded her too much of the sins she didn’t dare to confess.)
They were happy and Daddy was happy and Mummy was happy and it seemed as if everything would be perfect forever. But the beautiful little girl had a terrible secret.
(The devil’s daughter, she was.)
She wasn’t beautiful. The devil had put his pictures into her head and the louder she prayed the clearer they became.
(The devil likes to feed on virtue. She could have been a saint.)
The plum tree withered and died.
(While the devil and his queen waited for the other plum to ripen.)
She went to church to try to absolve her sins, but the Lord didn’t want her. He told her she’d been born to be wicked, and the little girl began to realise that he was right.
(She wondered if she should throw herself into the river and cut off the wickedness forever. A drowning Ophelia. She’d always been fond of herbs and it would have been better to die pure than live in a shroud of sin. But she was so young, so frightened. She couldn’t save herself.)
Before she could decide what to do, the devil came to claim his own.
(He didn’t have a name, the devil. Like Rumpelstiltskin. They called him after the angels, but the angels in the stories were always white and beautiful and he was wrong. Terribly wrong.)
He …
(No. No. We can’t tell them that.)